Not to send my children to private school even though I can afford it

[AdamRyan]

I believe in comprehensive education and think children should all be educated together, to improve social mobility and prevent a "brain drain" where less privileged children go to some schools, and more privileged go to others.
Am I in the minority and being naive?

YANBU - comprehensive schools are the way to go
YABU - I'd send my children private if I could

i'm with you. WC background and COULD send both kids private with the loss of family holidays, luxuries etc but - I just don't believe in it.
I don't think it's good for children to be put into such a rarefied private, privileged atmosphere where they're all coached through exams while their individuality is ignored.

State schools are a much richer experience IMHO and my children already have immense advantages with music lessons, money to travel, money to join clubs and do extra- curriculars, living in a 'nice' area etc.

This is ridiculous. Yes there is economic diversity in the sense that some people are wealthy, some people are really wealthy, and some people are really REALLY wealthy. But we’re splitting hairs, obviously.

Anyone who can afford to pay private school fees (even if they are “scrimping and saving”, a point I made earlier in the thread) is in a tiny minority of extremely privileged people in this country.

Mumtothreegirlies · 01/07/2023 21:46

Save your money the only thing private school does is teach them to be snobs. My dad went to private school…snob. my business partner…snob. my sister went to private school…snob

Why did your sister go to private school and not you? Also maybe find a business partner who isn’t a snob.

Have they ever visited an independent school in London, for instance? They would have a shock.

They probably know, but lack of diversity is one of a long list of insults that is regularly thrown at private schools on mumsnet and who cares if it’s true or not.
Have we had ‘did you know that one of the traditions of private schools is that new boys/girls are roasted over a spit on their first day?’

This thread is so repetitive.

They live in a nice area so presumably this may mean your state school choices are better than other people.

The only people who should raise moral arguments are those who would send their child to a rubbish state school in a bad area in principle and not a private school, despite being able to afford it.

For anyone not in that scenario, claiming to be doing it due to being principled is nonsense

It doesn't mean you can't get an education, of course it doesn't. But it does mean that the odds of getting a high-quality education without fighting tooth and nail for it are much higher.

It's a numbers game. Nothing to do with being "special" either. Just most parents don't want to watch their children floundering if they can afford to avoid it.

@whodawhodaeho

State schools are a much richer experience IMHO and my children already have immense advantages with music lessons, money to travel, money to join clubs and do extra- curriculars, living in a 'nice' area etc.

What does a "much richer experience" mean exactly?

And the argument that one doesn't care about education if you choose state over private is bs

0021andabit
What a beautiful post and one that very nicely highlights why the dozens of posts that can be paraphrased as "but what about economic diversity, plenty of state schools get good results, it must be so disappointing to spend money on private education if your child goes on to be non-elite" etc really, really miss the point.

A lot of parents don't choose private education to gain a network of bankers and accountants or because they're obsessed with exam results. They do it because they look at the circumstances they're in, their child, and what their options are and aim to make the best choice they can for their child.

Don’t forget many private schools offer burseries etc so some of the students will be going there for a highly-reduced fee or even for free.

It's not "lack of diversity" as such - more being around a variety of socio-economic backgrounds.

Private schools are majority wealthy (or clever enough to have a scholarship and parents who know how to access that). As a result they exclude a whole section of society.

It's bad enough the media go on about "benefit scroungers" and make it seem as if being poor is a choice. I want my children to see life isn't that black and white.

I don't think anyone has argued that if you go state you don't care about your kids education.

Most people are painfully aware that a lot of parents care very deeply about their children's education but don't have the resources for private school.

The central contention of the OP was that private schools are unfair and entrench privilege. I can't disagree with that on fundamentals. It's absolutely correct.

I think many of us are making two points:

• We know it's unfair but we aren't prepared to sacrifice our children's opportunities in order to adhere to a theoretical principle of egalitarianism because the gulf in quality is too big to justify this.
• There are plenty of ways to entrench privilege and skew your children's opportunities without paying for private school. And its therefore somewhat hypocritical for people who take advantage of other forms of privilege to call out private education as if it were the sole wellspring of inequality.

It's not "lack of diversity" as such - more being around a variety of socio-economic backgrounds.

AdamRyan I was referring to CaveMum’s comment “ around the perception that all private schools are like Eton - very white and very upper-middle/upper class.”

"It's not "lack of diversity" as such - more being around a variety of socio-economic backgrounds."

OP, if you attend a school in a deprived catchment area, that's not actually 'diverse' is it? It's just 'deprived' and that's all your DC will experience.

If you attend a school in a white, very MC suburb like Guildford, that's not diverse either. It will be very white, middle-England and the majority of families drawn from similar income brackets and housing. Hardly diverse.

If you attend a school in a very rural area, that's hardly going to be diverse either is it? I could go on.

As I said OP, if you came to an independent school in London (I mention London because these are the schools I know), you would be very surprised. White students are in the minority in many schools. Very international intake. Anything from children who live in some of the most deprived estates to the odd child of an oligarch or celebrity - and everything in between. That is far more diverse than your average comp in middle England or one in a highly deprived area. You are confusing 'diversity' with 'deprivation' when actually, diversity means people of all walks of life and cultures - including exposure to those who may have more money than you. Not a race to the bottom. That's life.

@Embarra55ed is a combined household income of maybe 50-60k really "rarified"? Let's say it's 20k a year for fees for one child (which is at the expensive end of day schools outside the really "Eton" types. If you live outside the south east, there are plenty of places to live where a mortgage is not off the scale and a couple working together could afford that, if they "scrimped and saved". That income, with two people working, is only 30k each which really isn't that high these days or hugely untypical. Yes if both are in minimum wage or zero hours contracts or similar of course it's not. No one is saying it's achievable for everyone or that those who can't do it don't care, but I actually don't think it's SO out of reach of all 93% of the population that don't use it But what is evident from this thread is that there are a lot of assumptions and misconceptions about private and the people that access it. I'm a single parent. I get staff discount so effectively pay for one child on my teacher's salary (same as state by the way) but get two places. It's doable. Hard but doable.

It's only at primary stage that 7% attend independent schools. At secondary level it's more like 17%-20% on average across U.K. In some areas, it's much higher than this.

It’s 8% of secondary pupils and 17% at sixth form.

https://www.pepf.co.uk/fact-finder/facts-and-figures/

Tiny proportion of the total.

Are you really saying a few bursary students means that private schools are economically diverse? Or just scoring points for the sake of it?

This. Mine are an example. They are / have been at a state comprehensive because it’s a brilliant school and it’s a mainly middle class aspirational contingent. If it weren’t they’d be in private. I am pretty sure that’s the case for the vast majority of affluent kids in state schools

And at ours a third of the year got all 8’s and 9’s whilst over half got nothing less than a 7 and 87% got at least 5 x 9-5 so pretty sure the kids are rising to the top

I think people also have to be honest with themselves about variation: some state schools really are pretty poor and some will rival the best private school.

It is very easy to take the moral high ground about valuing comprehensive education if you’re in a catchment with a nice school. We’re in an area with amazing primaries, amazing private schools but are in a secondary blackspot for admissions. A few miles down the road we’d have access to a v desirable state secondary but we have no chance where we are. A large proportion of parents from our school will either move or go private and so the cycle continues where the demographics of the catchment secondary don’t improve. Now I think if labour chuck vat on fees that will make quite a change and the picture could be quite different by the time my children are going to secondary.

Well. No because I am middle class and so my children will always experience that in their family setting, regardless of if they go to school in a deprived area.

And also mixing socioeconomic backgrounds people in "deprived areas" get exposure to other classes and that's where the social mobility comes in.

@Embarra55ed I don't think anyone is saying they expose a child to the full range of human life, but no school does, or job, neighbourhood or lifestyle. Most of us go through life with fairly narrow experience..so long as you KNOW it's narrow, and you know you aren't an authority on everything it's fine.

If you go to a really crappy comp with appalling results and behaviour, does that somehow count as more "real" ? Are those kids somehow "better" for having seen and experienced violence in the classroom and a shitty attitude to learning? There's no merit in that. Just as there's no shame in working my arse off to get my kids into a place where they feel safe and can learn.

Not sure why you’ve directed this at me. All I said was that private schools are not economically diverse. They’re not.

What?
If you have a family where two people earn 30k each, that's 60k total pre tax. After tax/NI you are looking at around £50k. So paying private school fees of 20k is 40% of total income. Not really affordable on top of living costs (most people spend about 30% on rent/mortgage). Its definitely not affordable if you have more than one child in school.

It's really disingenuous to suggest most people can afford school fees.